A group of green activists is proposing to take more direct action against those of us who disagree with them.

Our initiative, Confront the Climate Cranks, will do just that: confront the cranks on camera and accompanied by some of the children they have put in danger. We will video all of our confrontations and then quickly make them available to the public—by posting them on YouTube and sharing them with mainstream and alternative media and the social networks of our partner organizations. (In the run-up to these confrontations, we will invite the participation of the members or readers of The Nation, Grist, Kids vs Global Warming and the other partnering organizations, polling them on which cranks to target, what questions to ask and so on. Thus we hope to build momentum before arriving in Washington, as well as generate continuing attention and activism after the confrontations.)

I was going to suggest that good old uncle Adolf had a similar idea, but Nicholas Hallam beat me to it.After some of the Government sponsored alarmist films we've seen it's no wonder these people will feel that they have massive support. It's a good job that the public have more sense than the leaders of the Cam-Cleg-Mil-Lucas 'Green' coalition.

I don't like his misuse of statistics, "An epidemiological study conducted in 2008 for the European Union—reported here for the first time—concluded that the 2003 heat wave had caused at least 71,449 excess deaths, a toll considerably higher than the United States suffered during the Vietnam War."

Lest we forget -

Over 4 million Vietnamese, Cambodian, Laotian soldiers and civilians died in the Vietnam war. The war lasted 20 years, 200,000 people died on average every year.

Excess winter deaths in EU countries, not Europe, exceed 150,000 every year. Over 3 million people have died over the last 20 years due to the cold.

Mark Hertsgaard will travel over the next few weeks to Washington, Baltimore, New York, Seattle, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Santa Barbara, Maine, Ohio, New Orleans, Oakland. That really is saving the planet.

Mark Hertsgaard has previous on "confronting" in Washington - flashback to April 2000:

"A Global Green Deal

Posted on Apr 1, 2000, Source: TomPaine.comThousands of environmental activists will converge on Washington to protest the World Bank this weekend, and with good reason. Instead of financing rainforest destruction and climate change, the Bank should support a Global Green Deal: a program to renovate human civilization environmentally from top to bottom while truly fighting poverty. Mark Hertsgaard explains how it could be done."

I blame Sir David King. Hertsgaard states that it was an interview with the then Government Chief Scientist in 2005 which changed his life. I pity his daughter, imagine having to grow up with a father as gullible as that.

Edmund Burke said something like "all that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good people do nothing". Well ladies and gents, I think some certifiable idiots are going to force some good people to break out, dust off, and eLectrify Ye Ol' Stocks, Ye Ol' Dunking Chairs, Ye Ol' Balls & Chains, Ye Ol' Tar & Feathers, and Ye Ol' Rack (let's try to keep the French out of it for a bit, you know what they have in the closet). The longer good people hesitate to take action, the more action they are forced to take. I believe a fella named Murphy said that.

I think we should have some kind of annual awards ceremony to recognise the most idiotic or dishonest activity by alarmists, perhaps timed to coincide with climate summits or maybe the Oscars. The categories could include:Worst new law; (nominations could include the EPA classing CO2 as a pollutant, mandatory cap-and-trade, pointless commitments to emissions reductionsMost egregious waste of public money; (Met Office computer, wind farm and solar panel subsidies)Most biased piece of mainstream journalism;Most dishonest or inept piece of climate research;Most pointless publicity stunt (see above)Ugliest threat; (Greenpeace "we know where you live" v 10:10 "no pressure")Air miles award for the best travelled climate activist;Al Gore and Rajendra Pachauri could slug it out with Michael Mann for the Lifetime Achievement award.

They are not talking about ordinary people or even scientists who disagree with AGW. Hertsgaard said: "I will go to Washington the week of February 15 to confront the climate cranks—in Congress, in the media and in the corporate sector—and try to stop them from further sabotaging our response to the climate crisis."

Still, such tactics can be overly rude and often backfire. But comparing this group to the Hitler Youth is ridiculous. It sounds like what Michael Moore does and what your side did in interviewing people at Cancun.

I am interested in the psychological impact on children of agitated, opinionated, poorly-informed, anxiety-ridden, aggressive, and assertive adults scared by the speculation that increasing CO2 levels will lead to severe and avoidable catastrophes. I have collected some relevant links here: http://climatelessons.blogspot.com/p/climate-anxiety-reports-of-frightened.html .

In my wanderings about the interweb, I came across this chap who might hold out some hope for our Climate Confronters:

'Dr. Doherty advises clients with global warming anxiety to recognize their concern about climate change and accept the limits of what they can control. He recommends “fasts” from shopping, the news and sending e-mail, while cultivating calmer pursuits like meditation or gardening.'

If he is still in business, they might track him down via this link from 2008: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/16/us/16therapy.htm

Shameless. Are they going to call the Department of Children and Family Services on cranks for abuse and neglect or are the cranks going to call DCFS on them? Why does he have to pull the kids into it? I'm having flashbacks of Sally Struthers in Ethiopia.

Maybe this guy is over-reacting in his new father status. Rightly, he feels protective, but tipping the scale in any direction is not good. Seems he may have some past demons to exercise.

I hope to be the point of one of the child abuse efforts. I will put the tel# of child Protective Services on my quick dial and give them a ring if any of these abusers brings in some poor kid to victimize in my presence.

It's their planet too. As long as they are not too young or have their parents' consent I do not see a problem with youth meeting their Congressional representatives. I do think 'video ambushing' people is swallow and rude, but it is not fascistic.

It's a pretty sick world - and the really funny (as in funny-weird) thing is that I see no evidence that makes me believe that those on either side of the debate changetheir behaviour (other than our politician overlords, who largely seem to decide what they want to do and then thrash around for a reason) one iota in response to their view on AGW. e.g. I am a sceptic, but I am one of the greenest people I know, recycling maximised, cycle trips maximised, careful with energy use and water use, extra jersey in the cold rather than turning up the central heating vs Al Gore, whose carbon footprint must be the size of a small town. So why do the warmists get so upset that we don't accept their religion?

MikeSo you don't have a problem with children who are far too young to understand the debate being used as props by their posturing parents. I brought mine up to think for themselves, they tend to be more functional adults that way.

Brownedoff quoted Hertsgaard at 4:25 PM: "Instead of financing rainforest destruction and climate change, the Bank should support a Global Green Deal: a program to renovate human civilization environmentally."

I worked at the Bank during that time, and vividly remember (this was the pre-9/11 era) when the Rainforest Action Network posted two of its kooky activist members directly at the main front door of the Bank, one dressed head to toe in a full-on gorilla costume, and another guy in (surprise!) 1960's hippie regalia and playing a set of bongos. I vaguely recall bananas and some kind of protest signage as part of the act. It went on every business day for a week or two, until someone convinced them to go away.

This was quickly surpassed by the every-nutty PETA (People For the Ethical Treatment of Animals) dumping a full truckload of cow dung literally on the doorstep at that same World Bank front door at about 8:30AM one lovely spring morning. After dumping it they abandoned the truck on that very spot and ran away. I later heard through the grapevine that PETA completely stiffed the small business owner they'd rented the truck from through the combination of a phoney ID and secured credit card. He ended up having to pay many hundreds of dollars to get his truck out of impound and pay all of the towing fees. How very "ethical" these people are.

Some parents let their kids sail around the world. I wouldn't, but I'm not going to tell every parent what to do. You may remember in Arizona the nine-year-old girl who was killed was there to meet her Congresswoman. There was nothing wrong with - obviously no one knew what would happen. So, in general bringing kids into the political process is not a bad thing. Some parents who do this do encourage their kids to think for themselves and while others are unfortunately dogmatic. It is the same as involving kids in religious issues. Now if this group encouraged kids to yell insults at people I'd be upset. If they ask to film kids asking questions about climate change, and they are upfront about who they are, that's OK. I really don't like the 'video ambush' approach, and do hope they don't involve kids in that.

I am not familiar with the group Kids vs Global Warming. I'll look up their website and see what kind off things they are doing.

I think "Godwin's Law" has been invoked a few times here, but the comparison that immediately occurred to me were the massed ranks of tearful protestors outside US abortion clinics over the last few decades. Lots of children, lots of posters and inevitably tragic results.